John Edwards' decision to move forward for the Democratic bid leaves a lot of us bewildered. But his choice isn't just about the presidential race, it's also about Elizabeth Edwards' life. It's about how she wants to live, but more important, how she wants to die.

When their 16-year-old son died in a car crash, the Edwardses learned that life can be extinguished, at any age and at any time. It was after this tragedy that their priorities changed.

"It's like your life is a blackboard full of stuff," Elizabeth Edwards shared in a 2006 Newsweek.com interview. "It's your job, your friends, your sister's getting a divorce or your dog is sick -- and then a child dies, and everything is gone.

"And what happens then is that you're very careful the next time you pick up that chalk."

You'd think incurable cancer would be important enough to chalk up as a priority on her list, but life and death choices are personal, not fodder for public debate. Elizabeth Edwards made a decision, a very personal one, knowing full well that the life expectancy of stage IV breast cancer victims tops out at five years for more than three- quarters of those afflicted with it. But she's not looking at her situation in dire terms.

"I want next year to look like last year," she told "60 Minutes." The only way to do that is to keep living as you always have, on your own terms.

Around one-quarter of stage IV breast cancer victims do live longer than five years. Some live longer than any doctor could predict. Elizabeth Edwards knows that there are no guarantees. She even considers herself sort of lucky because she knows what she will likely die from, and how much time she has. Her son wasn't so fortunate.

Leaving the presidential race is like leaving the human race for Elizabeth Edwards. It's her passion and her life. She chooses to go gently into that good night like any other day. Her choice to live life on her own terms is life-affirming, not shortsighted.

SHAUNTI FELDHAHN

It's true that no one else can say what the Edwards family "should" do. I suspect that their decision will be an ongoing and very personal one. And I have enough logs in my own eye that I will not criticize someone who is courageously confronting a painful situation.

But the wife and mother in me still watches with concern, not wanting John Edwards to have regrets later. Although Elizabeth is enthusiastic about the campaign -- acknowledging its intense stress and unusual time away from family -- I hope that isn't the choice she feels she "should" make as a high-powered woman, instead of preferring precious time with her husband and children.

No one can answer that question but her, and no one thinks cancer patients should stay home and give up. But conservatives aren't the only ones trying to give Elizabeth an "out" if she wants it. Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive magazine recently editorialized that that if John Edwards had stepped aside, he would have told "our work- obsessed society that he's got his priorities straight."

In the '90s, NFL player Chris Spielman gave up his career when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. And Robertson McQuilkin stepped down as president of Columbia International University to tend to his Alzheimer's-afflicted wife, saying, "She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years. If I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be out of her debt."

Today, Family Life, a worldwide broadcasting and family advice organization, annually presents a "Robertson McQuilkin Award" to someone demonstrating that same "covenant-keeping love." Dennis Rainey, Family Life's founder, explained in an interview that: "We have a culture that is craving real love stories like these. We wanted to honor someone making that commitment until the end." And he added that where many men desert cancer-afflicted wives, he applauded the Edwardses for "modeling commitment to one another in the midst of a crisis."

Elizabeth told "60 Minutes" that she didn't want her legacy to be making her husband drop out of the race. Instead, how powerful would it be if, down the road, John Edwards' legacy was dropping out of the race for her, setting aside his political potential for a season to demonstrate his covenant-keeping love.